


Schwan Man

by tikistitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 05:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tikistitch/pseuds/tikistitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby wants to find the source of the hot spell they're having in Sioux Falls this December.  Sammy just wants another popsicle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Schwan Man

**Author's Note:**

> Written for guineapigprincess's super-cute prompt, the Tumblr TFW Secret Santa 2013. I wrote this 'cause my relatives live in rural Montana, and sometimes the high point of the day would be the visit from the Schwan Man.

“Deeeeaen! Wanna play!”

“Sammy, no!”

Bobby sighed good-naturedly and heaved himself up from the table where he had several dusty old tomes open on the kitchen table. He cracked his back and headed outside. He knew a thing of two about small boys, and one thing he knew well was when shouts could be ignored, and when they needed to be attended to.

“What in the name of Jehovah is goin' on out here?” he hollered from his back porch.

Two Winchester boys suddenly turned their heads. There was a pause, and then, in a rush, two of them attempting to speak over one another.

Between the two, the apparent source of the conflict: an old wooden sled, which had been liberated from one of Bobby's storage sheds.

“Unka Bobby, I wanna play with the sled!” Sammy wailed, giving a vigorous tug on the leather strap.

“No, Sammy!” his elder brother scolded. “There's no snow. You'd break your nose!”

“Unka Bobbeeeee!”

Bobby smiled and, despite the protests from his knee joints, hunkered down beside the boys, so he was at eye level with the smaller of the two. “Sam, your brother's right. We gotta wait for the first snow to ride the sled.”

“But it's win'er!” Sam protested.

“Well, I know that. But it's just been real unseasonably warm 'round these parts this year.”

“Awwww!” Sammy seemed to deflate. He let the leather strap on the sled fall to the ground, and his little shoulders slumped in existential despair.

“But that's just fine!” Bobby told him. “There's plenty of other stuff to do while we wait.”

Bobby was confronted by a pair of angry, accusing light green eyes. “Like what?”

“Uh-” But just then, as if in answer, a panel truck rattled into Singer Salvage. “Hey, the Schwan man is here, you can help us unload. Would you like that?”

“Popsnickles?” asked Sam.

“Popsicles,” huffed Dean. “It's popsicles, Sam.”

Bobby tried to keep the mood bright. “Hey, I bet he's got some popsicles in there. You come with me, and we'll check.” His knees cracking in protest as he rose, Bobby extended a hand, and Sam excitedly took it. “Dean, can you put that sled back for me?”

“Yes, Uncle Bobby,” said Dean solemnly, squaring his shoulders. Bobby let Sam tug him along to meet the grocery truck, but spared a glance back at the boy's elder brother. John Winchester didn't have two boys, he reflected: he had one boy and one pint-sized forty-year-old. 

“Hey!” called Sammy as the delivery man climbed out of his truck.

“Hey, Sam!” the driver called. “Hey, Bobby.” The last couple months the deliveryman had been this new guy with fancy hair and tattoos. But he seemed nice enough. 

“Hey, Boris,” said Bobby, as the guy handed him a clipboard, displaying a very vivid tattoo on the inside of his forearm: a pair of purple wings. “Got some new ink?”

“Oh,” said Boris, shrugging. “Had that one a while. Oh, hey, I screwed up. You know those frozen steaks you ordered?” He pointed to the list.

“My steaks?” asked Bobby, narrowing his eyes. “Don't tell me you forgot my damn steaks!”

“Aw, no, I was just a bonehead and packed them all the way in the front. Would you mind if I came around later, after I've made my rounds, and handed them off then? It will save me unpacking the whole damn truck.”

Bobby breathed with relief. “That should be all right. I'll just leave the back door open, you can come in and put 'em right in the freezer.”

“Cool!”

“But make sure you come back!”

“Popsnickles, Unka Bobby!” said Sam, pulling on Bobby's pant leg. 

Bobby stooped down and lifted Sam to his hip. “Whoa, you're getting big there, squirt,” he told him. “Hey, you think you might have popsnickles hidden in there somewhere? It's a little on the warm side today, and I could sure use one.”

“Hey, I think we can fulfill that order,” said Barry, pulling his hand truck out of the back. 

 

Bobby sat at the battered kitchen table once again, enjoying a lime popsicle. 

Sam sat beside him, up on a stack of phone books, applying his crayons to a coloring book while he slurped on an orange popsicle. The entire lower half of Sam's face was now bright orange, and there were little dribbles of orange on his picture. 

“Enjoying your artwork?”

“Uh-HUH!” Bobby smiled and ruffed the boy's hair.

“Uncle Bobby,” said Dean solemnly.

Bobby smiled. Dean had made himself scarce since the fight with his brother. He would sometimes go out in the lot and sit in one of the big cars and pretend to drive. It seemed to cheer him up. “Oh, there you are, kid. You wanna popsnickle?” Sammy grinned a big, orange-y grin.

“No thanks. Do any of your guns need cleaning, Uncle Bobby?”

Bobby put a marker in his grimoire and closed it, scratching his beard. “Well, it's nice of you to offer, but I think that's squared away.”

“Dad says I need to have more experience with firearms,” said Dean, jutting his jaw.

“He does, does he?” Well, that explained it. “Wanna be like your dad, huh?”

“Yes sir,” said Dean. 

Bobby thought on that for a moment, looking into the intensely seriously green eyes. He pulled out a chair. “I'll tell you what. Why don't you help me do my research for a little while? I'm kinda stuck here, and I need help.”

“Research?” asked Dean, his lip curling. Bobby grinned. It sounded like Bobby had just invited him to partake of some lovely liver and onions. Maybe with a side of broccoli and brussels sprouts. 

“That's right. You help me out for a while here, and then maybe we'll go out and work on one of those old Chevy engines for a spell. Would you like that?”

Dean was up in the chair before Bobby had finished speaking. “What are we researching?” 

“Well, like your brother noticed, the weather's a little funny here lately. It's December, and we should be under an ass- Uh, I mean a heap of snow. And the towns nearby are gettin' storms. Just not us.”

“So, we're just lucky?”

“Well, I'm wondering if maybe it's being influenced by somethin'.”

Dean's eyes grew big. “You mean like a demon?”

“Uh-huh,” said Bobby, sliding a book Dean's way.

Dean sneezed. “Ew! This book is dusty.” 

Sam giggled and dribbled orange on the table.

“And I can't read any of this, Uncle Bobby! It's all in some weird language.”

Bobby pointed to a woodcut of a demon flying overhead. “This here is a grimoire.” 

“Grim war,” repeated Dean.

“Grim bear!” repeated Sammy.

“It's a whole book about demons,” Bobby told them. “Now, you take a look through there, study all the pictures, see if you see anything relevant.”

Dean leafed through a few pages. “These pictures are pretty cool, Uncle Bobby. Lots of skulls! And monsters!”

“Yep.”

“Um....”

“What?”

His voice was barely above a whisper. “Uh, could I have a popsicle maybe?”

“Popsnickles!” said Sam approvingly.

Bobby nodded and headed for the kitchen. The phone rang, and he grabbed the receiver. “Singer Salvage,” he said as he rummaged in the freezer. He stopped and, casting a glance at the boys, retreated around the corner, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper. “John! Where the flaming hell are you? Yeah, I know you're on a job but.... John, I got two boys here and.... It's nearly Christmas, John! No, you listen to me! I don't want you to wire me any damn money. Those kids don't want any present more than their daddy. John! John, do not hang up on- Balls!” Bobby slammed down the receiver, and then turned.

Dean was staring up at him. “He's not gonna make it,” he said. “It's all right. We understand.”

Bobby stared down at Dean. He put a hand on his shoulder. “Let's get you a popsnickle.”

 

“Can you hand me that socket wrench, Dean?”

Dean grabbed the metal tool and eagerly handed it to Bobby, who was hunched over a V8 engine. Bobby wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of a sleeve. They were inside the garage, out of the beat of the sun, but the day had gotten hot.

“We didn't find your demon, Uncle Bobby,” said Dean. The kid had been a little quiet this afternoon, and Bobby had begun to wonder if something was wrong. Working on cars was usually the thing to get him chatting.

“Well, sometimes you find the demon, sometimes you don't,” he told Dean.

“You sure it's a demon?”

Bobby paused. He set down his tools and grabbed a plastic bottle of water, taking a generous gulp. “Well, it's the hottest winter in fifty years around here, but just fifty miles down the road they've got a snowstorm. Seems a little unnatural, wouldn't you say?”

“No, I mean, you sure it's a demon?” asked Dean. “I mean, could it be, like, a ghost or something?”

From the mouths of babes, thought Bobby. “You might be onto something, kid.” Dean smiled brightly.

Sammy came running over, clutching a popsicle stick. The lower half of his face as well as his hands and shirt were now a bright green. “Unka Bobby, can I have anudder popsnickle?”

“It's popsicle, Sammy,” said Dean.

Bobby chuckled. “If I feed you another one, you're gonna turn into a popsnickle!” He grabbed a wet rag and ran it under the sink, and then crouched down to dab it on Sam's face. “I'm sure there's still a kid under there, somewhere.”

“I bet that Schwan man likes it hot,” said Dean.

“Why is that?” asked Bobby as Sam squirmed under the towel.

“Well, I bet he's selling a ton of popsnickles. And ice cream and stuff.”

Bobby stood up. “Damn. Why didn't I see it?”

“See what?” asked Dean.

Bobby tossed the rag into the sink. “Boys, no popsnickles for a while. I need your help.”

“With what?” asked Dean.

“We're gonna do a little painting.”

 

The back door to Bobby's house opened a crack.

“Hello?”

Hearing no answer, Boris the Schwan delivery guy wheeled his hand truck inside, pushing it towards Bobby's kitchen. 

He suddenly stopped in the middle of the living room.

Panicking, he looked around frantically, and then looked up at the ceiling.

“Dammit!”

The light flipped on, and Bobby stepped into the room. He was holding a wooden stake that had been sharpened to a point on one end. “I had to go through six different books to get that trap. You should be impressed.”

The deliveryman frowned. “Your steaks are gonna melt.”

“So, you're Boreas?”

“I was Boreas. In another life. I'm just a guy with a job now.”

“Just a simple deliveryman who likes to mess with our weather!”

The god waved his arms. “You don't want to live in Hyperborea? I could keep the weather nice like this. Eternal spring.”

“I like where I am, thank you kindly. And I might add, it ain't a great idea to mess with that kinda stuff.” 

Bobby halted. He heard the noise of two quarreling boys outside. “Deeean!”

“You can't use that now, Sammy!” yelled his brother.

Sparing a glance for the pagan god deliveryman, Bobby went over to the window and sighed. The kids were fighting over Sammy's sled again. “See? This is what happens when you throw a monkey wrench into our weather system.”

Borea shrugged. “You really want a snowstorm?” He pointed to Bobby's stake. “You're not gonna get it if you use that on me.”

Bobby clutched the stake. He looked out the window.

And then he looked back at the pagan god. “How about this? I may have a deal for you.”

 

“Deeeeean!”

Bobby stood on his back porch, watching the boys slide, screaming, down the low hill on his property as a light snow sprinkled the grounds. 

“You boys sure you don't wanna come in for some hot chocolate?”

“Nooooooo!” screamed Sam. 

Dean stood and laughed. “Just a little while longer, Uncle Bobby?”

“Well, all right, but it's gonna be Christmas tomorrow, and you'll wanna get up early.”

Dean rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. They started dragging the sled back up the hill, but there was the sound of gravel in the driveway. “Are you expecting someone, Uncle Bobby?” Dean called out.

Sam screamed. He ran, slipping and sliding down the hill, and jumped for the truck almost before it had come to a stop. “Daddy!”

“Hey,” said John, lifting his son. “Sammy, you're getting huge.”

“Dad,” said Dean, going in for a no less enthusiastic hug.

Bobby reached out a hand, and John shook it enthusiastically. “Thought you were out on a job,” said Bobby.

“Well, it was the damnedest thing, I thought I had a vampire nest isolated, but then we were hit by a freak snowstorm. Can you believe it?”

“Huh,” said Bobby. “Ain't that too bad. You wanna come in?”

“Yeah, that would be great. You guys can help me get my stuff out of the back, right?” he asked the boys. Dean hopped up on the bed of the truck and grabbed a big bag. “Be careful with that?”

“Is it weapons?” asked Dean. 

“Try opening it,” said John. Dean unzipped the bag and yelled, “Wow!” It was filled with wrapped gifts.

The crunch of gravel sounded again from up Bobby's driveway. “Who's that?” asked John.

“POPSNICKLES!” yelled Sammy, wriggling down from John's arms to go greet the Schwan truck.

“Your Schwan man makes deliveries on Christmas Eve?” John asked Bobby.

“Mine does,” laughed Bobby. “We're gonna have us some hot cocoa and popsnickles.” He went to greet the driver.

“Popsicles?” asked John.

“Popsnickles,” Dean corrected. He held out a hand to his father, and then they walked together, father and son, hand in hand, down to meet to the Schwan truck.


End file.
